


Just For a Little While

by Amikotsu



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Comatose Tsunade, Everybody Lives, F/M, Feelings, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hokage Jiraiya, Jiraiya lives, Naruto is Just Naruto, Pre-Relationship, Unrequited Love, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29440755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amikotsu/pseuds/Amikotsu
Summary: He didn’t want to die, he’d never left his home to die on foreign soil, but fate had other plans for him. He’d wanted to see Naruto become Hokage. He’d wanted Tsunade to accept him, to love him, the way that he accepted and loved her. Being murdered hadn’t been in the cards.This is what happens when Jiraiya lives.
Relationships: Jiraiya & Uzumaki Naruto, Jiraiya/Tsunade (Naruto)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 22
Collections: Naruto AU Week 2021





	1. When One Door Closes

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Everybody Lives, Nobody Dies

He’d lived his life to the fullest, he’d accomplished everything he’d wanted to accomplish, and he still felt as if his life was a story half-told, jumbled sentences linking together to form monstrous paragraphs of utter nonsense. He didn’t want to die, he’d never left his home to die on foreign soil, but fate had other plans for him. He’d wanted to see Naruto become Hokage. He’d wanted Tsunade to accept him, to love him, the way that he accepted and loved her. Being murdered hadn’t been in the cards. His goodbyes had been too final, as if his heart knew it would be the last time he ever saw Konoha, the last time he ever saw his precious people. His dying thoughts revolved around his writings and the people he transformed into characters. He had everything to give, his thoughts, his feelings, the air in his lungs. He went quietly, lost in a watery grave. He vaguely thought that it would be a shame. He left no corpse for a proper burial. He was another empty grave, another name lost on the memorial stone. Maybe someone would tell the story he’d never finished. Maybe someone would speak of Jiraiya the Gallant. Maybe he would live on in written word. As it was, the current carried his corpse away.

Pain brought him around again. He choked on the water as it left his lungs. He coughed for several minutes, blood intermixed with cold water and saliva. He spat the last bit of water out and took his first, large breath of fresh air as though he were starving. Two people stood over him, talking amongst themselves. Jiraiya smelled fish, so he surveyed the deck of the boat and saw a large fishing net to the side. Fish flopped around him, and he plucked one from within his hair. It was then that he remembered most of his left arm was gone. The cold water had slowed the bleeding, but he knew he'd die from blood loss if he didn't get to a medic soon. The two fishermen had accidentally swept him up with their catch and he'd never felt more grateful. Beneath that, he was already disappointed. He'd thought it was the end for him, and it should have been, but there he lay, in the middle of a pile of fish.

They didn't know what to make of him, but they didn't toss his sorry ass overboard, so he couldn't complain. He'd tried speaking to them, but his throat was raw and the hit he'd taken left him unable to produce more than a few gravelly words at a time. Their accents placed them in a northern province of Rain, likely near the border with the Land of Earth. One grabbed a large blanket and draped it over his shoulders, while the second gave him a cup of hot coffee. The coffee was passable at best, but the warmth from the ceramic mug was enough to restore the feeling to his fingers. More than once, he'd tried to stand, but his knees buckled and sent him right back to the deck. One of the fishermen took pity on him and helped him to a bench in the wheelhouse, where he tried and failed to remove the remaining two, black rods from his back. The others had been knocked free, likely at the bottom of the waters or lost amongst the daily catch. 

"Where are you from? Your accent isn't from this area." 

"Northeast, near Tenchi."

"Ah, the Land of Grass. I have a friend from that area. Wars are pretty bad there, I hear. You're a shinobi. Shouldn't you be fighting?"

"Not much of a shinobi anymore."

That was the extent of the conversation. He'd exhausted himself and overworked his aching throat. He could have sworn his whole neck had been crushed by that hit. Luck was on his side. The two fisherman, Saburo and Koichi, returned to the south dock to get him medical attention, abandoning their fishing voyage for the day, but there was no dock left. The entire area looked as if it had been hit by a violent hurricane. They had to go ashore to let him off, one of them guiding from land as the other slowly moved the ship to the shore. They were kind to him, kinder than they should have been, considering he was a total stranger and neither of them seemed too thrilled with the fact that he was a shinobi. On shore, they all worked to remove the final rods from Jiraiya’s back, using towels from the ship to keep pressure on the wounds. Disturbing the area produced fresh blood, and while neither man wanted to cause Jiraiya pain, they obeyed his wishes. He didn’t want them following him or escorting him to a medic, though they gave him directions to a man who lived on the outskirts of the village. They promised the old man wouldn’t ask any questions, and he had no intention of answering any. With a small wave, Jiraiya bid his saviors goodbye and started the journey that would take him one step closer to Konoha. 

Amegakure was advanced beyond its time, a shining example of industrial architecture. The tops of most buildings kissed the sky, and there were illuminated billboards advertising multiple businesses and locations. At one time, the village had tried to lure in tourists, but the constant rain ruined those plans. Yugakure was the ideal tourist spot, not Amegakure. He hadn't visited the village since the second shinobi war, as if avoiding the place would bury the painful memories associated with Amegakure and his team. He'd almost died. Twice. He should have known that he was destined to die there. Maybe he did. But a lone fishing vessel had saved him, plucking him from what should have been his watery grave. Once more, Amegakure had failed in claiming his life. He never thought he'd see his students again. He never thought they'd try to kill him. Yet there he was, one arm wrapped around his midsection to keep the gaping hole in his gut from killing him. He should have left them for dead. Another regret to force him on. 

The doctor had an office in what looked like an old shop. The man likely lived above the one-floor clinic, if the lights in the second floor said anything. The clinic itself was dark, since it was after hours. The village had at least one other hospital that he remembered, but he needed discretion, and that hospital had shinobi in and out. He didn't want an interrogation. Jiraiya pressed the doorbell and heard the buzzer sound from somewhere overhead. He heard a conversation taking place, so he waited for the lights on the bottom floor to flicker to life. Once on, the long fluorescent lights fueled the dull throbbing behind his eyes. The doctor must have been in his seventies, and he wore a pair of light blue pajamas, with a sleeping cap perched on his head. He took one look and opened the door for the soaked shinobi. 

"Do you know what time of night it is? Why didn't you go to the hospital?"

"I'm not from Amegakure. Why would they help me?"

"Tch. No shoes? I'll have to scrub the mud off these floors. Let's have a look at you. This way, this way."

Jiraiya grunted as he forced his tired body to take faster steps. By that point, he’d lost the feeling in his toes, and that same numbness traveled up his calves, threatening to take the remainder of his legs. He sat on an exam table in one of the clinic’s two exam rooms and watched the doctor putter around the room collecting gloves, a stethoscope, and a large, well-stocked first-aid kit. The arm was a total loss. There was nothing the man could do for a missing arm except do damage control. The doctor cleaned the wound and stopped the bleeding and wrapped it, the only things he could do for Jiraiya, then he moved on to the open wounds. Jiraiya removed the top half of his clothing and the man mumbled, passing glowing hands over the five gaping wounds. 

“How did you manage to stop the bleeding so well? You should have died from these. This one? Almost hit your kidneys. This one? Your liver. You’re very lucky,” the doctor trailed off, indicating that he wanted a name. For the first time, Jiraiya lifted his head and actually observed the old man. He wore a thick set of glasses and had short grey hair, but his hands were steady and warm. There was a name stitched onto the white coat he wore: Terada.

“Ichiro.” Jiraiya winced as the man began to clean the wounds; he was trying to salvage skin and tissue, but Jiraiya already anticipated the horrible scars. He had five new scars to match the horrific one on his chest. He tensed when the man neared his spine, as if his nerves were just waiting to remind him that there was pain beyond the numbness. “Can you be a little more careful? Damn,” Jiraiya muttered, hands gripping the edge of the exam table.

“I’m sorry, who’s the doctor here? I’m not the one who was impaled on the battlefield. I’m not the one who took a dip in the water. You missed some seaweed, by the way.” Terada, from his place at Jiraiya’s back, dangled a long piece of seaweed in front of Jiraiya’s face. The single piece of seaweed landed with a _splat_ on the linoleum, followed by several more pieces pulled from Jiraiya’s hair. “I’m not going to ask where you’re from. I know you’ll lie to me about that too,” Terada huffed, shaking his head. 

“Then why are you helping me?” He had trouble speaking again and Terada stopped treating his back to press a glowing hand over his throat. When the hand was gone, Jiraiya cleared his throat a few times. He found it easier to speak, and much easier to breathe. His thanks went unspoken. 

“As a doctor, I took an oath to save lives. Right now, I’m saving yours. If you would have been out in that rain any longer, I might have had to amputate what was left of that arm.” Terada began the slow process of stitching up the injuries, while Jiraiya contemplated the man’s words. The silence was only broken up by the occasional hiss of pain and a half-hearted apology.

“Jiraiya.”

“I know.”

“And you’re still treating me?”

“The oath.” Terada moved on to the next spot and Jiraiya finally relaxed his tense muscles. Many people knew about him, mostly his enemies. He avoided Amegakure for a number of reasons. He left a mark on Amegakure’s history, even if he and his teammates hadn’t been able to defeat Hanzo. Thinking about the past drew his mind right to the orphans, and that left him frowning. The steady motion of the needle in and out of his flesh grounded him. “Hanzo’s been dead for years. Things are different here. Not better. Not worse. Stagnant. Some would consider that bad though, I suppose.”

“Years?” Jiraiya tried to turn his head but Terada scolded him, so he sighed and glared straight ahead. “How many years would you say?” Terada continued with the stitches, though he responded with a vague noise.

“I’d say going on fifteen years now. There’s someone in charge, believe me, but it’s not him. This isn’t the place you want to be, Jiraiya. If I were you, I’d get back to Konoha. They know you’re here.” Terada didn’t speak again. When the man finished the final stitch on the last wound, he grinned to himself. Jiraiya went to stretch but Terada slapped his right arm. “None of that! You blow these stitches and I’ll make sure you never walk again!” Jiraiya laughed at the mere thought of the old man fighting him, but his laughter came to an abrupt end when the doorbell sounded overhead. He locked eyes with Terada and the man slowly released a breath. “Go out the back.”

“I can still fight,” Jiraiya argued. Terada slowly shook his head. As if to prove a point, Jiraiya tried to summon some of his chakra, but Terada gripped his wrist and squeezed. “I know how to defeat them now.”

“I admire your fight, Jiraiya, but this is _my_ battle now. Do me a favor and mind those stitches.” Terada smiled, his eyes briefly closing, then he released his hold on Jiraiya’s wrist and left the room. From the room, Jiraiya heard him shout at the door. “I’m coming! I’m coming! I’m an old man.”

They both would have died. Jiraiya repeated the words over and over again as he escaped out the backdoor. With every footstep, he tried to shake the guilt weighing down on his shoulders. He moved through the narrow alleys, hiding in the shadows when he couldn’t avoid people, hoping to put distance between himself and Terada. The sound of an explosion echoed throughout the village. He stopped his escape long enough to look back, and he saw flames climbing into the sky. Terada was gone. And it should have been him. Fist clenched, Jiraiya took a step back in that direction, but he stopped himself. Terada had bought him time, and he didn’t want to waste it. Barefoot, angry, he made his way out of Amegakure, turning his back on the village he hated so much. He’d faced it once, while a young man, and he’d faced it yet again, in his fifties. Both times made him appreciate the slice of paradise that was Konohagakure. The village wasn’t perfect, but it was far ahead of Amegakure. He didn’t regret sharing his real name with the doctor, not when he thought over the man’s words one more time. He looked down at the neat bandages on what remained of his left arm and tried to imagine losing even more of it. Terada’s dedication to the medic’s oath had saved him. He was lucky, yet again. Some kami clearly loved him. He didn’t deserve it.


	2. Another Door Opens

It took him seven long days to complete a journey he could have made in one, and when he finally reached the entrance to the village, he couldn’t recognize the place. The entire village had been leveled. He was too late. He didn’t even know if his message had reached the village, let alone if they were able to crack the code. There was nothing left of the place he’d once called home. It hadn’t been home for decades though; he’d become a wanderer. And yet it still hurt him to see the people slowly emerging from the rubble. How any of them survived was beyond him. It was another miracle, another kami blessing him. 

No one greeted him at the gate, but he wasn’t surprised by the lack of security. There was nothing left to protect, unless he counted the numerous dirty faces he passed along his way through the streets. His favorite bathhouse was gone. Naruto’s favorite ramen stand was gone. He didn’t see anyone he recognized, and for a change, no one recognized him. It could have been the fact that his lower legs and feet were caked in dirt and his chest was bare, hidden beneath rolls of bandages; it could have been the fact that most of his left arm was gone. He lacked his usual pride and his mischievous personality. He felt as if he’d failed the villagers. If he would have succeeded, the village wouldn’t have been destroyed. If he would have figured out the secret behind his former pupil’s fighting style, the village wouldn’t have been destroyed. He wouldn’t have been half a man, stumbling through the streets, hoping no one stopped to speak to him, hoping no one noticed him. He’d failed, and the part of himself that could have lifted his spirits and seen through the crushing weight of guilt was unusually silent. He felt as if he were lost under the rubble too.

The administration building was gone, the academy and the Hokage’s office reduced to rubble. He stood on the spot and stared up at the clear, blue sky, as if looking overhead would somehow make the building reappear. Nothing happened. He lingered at that spot for several minutes before he finally turned and headed for the hospital. He assumed the place would be overrun. He was right, but he was also wrong. The building was nothing but a stone frame of itself. Two floors remained, though the bottom floor looked unstable and the second floor was nothing but load-bearing walls. He thought he would find Tsunade there, barking out orders, hurrying from patient to patient, but she was noticeably absent. She should have been on the front lines of the recovery, but he didn’t see her. He couldn’t find her. In his heart, he came to the conclusion that she’d died protecting the village, the one thing she correctly predicted. He collapsed next to the entrance to a medical tent and watched the people shuffling in and out of the two other tents. People looked relatively well, considering they could have been corpses. Somehow, someone had defeated the paths, where he had failed.

“Pervy sage?”

Jiraiya closed his eyes to avoid seeing the heartbreak on his student’s face. He’d seen the tears shining in those blue eyes, tears that shouldn’t have been there. Something told him to smile or laugh, to make light of the situation, but he was tired. He didn’t want a tearful reunion. He wanted someone to tell him that it wasn’t his fault, none of it was his fault. When he opened his eyes again, he saw that Naruto had approached and fallen to his knees. The tears that had gathered in the blond’s eyes were overflowing, cutting lines down his dirty cheeks.

“How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me that?”

Naruto threw himself at Jiraiya and Jiraiya wrapped his arm around the teen. He listened to the soft sobs and watched Naruto’s shoulders shake with every single one. They fell apart together, though he’d had years to master the art of feigning indifference. With Naruto there, others from the same age group began to congregate around them, starting with Naruto’s former teammate, Sakura. She placed a hand on Naruto’s right shoulder and squeezed. As the sobs died down, Naruto slowly pulled away and finally examined Jiraiya’s injuries, his eyes glued to the remainder of Jiraiya’s left arm. Jiraiya rubbed the back of his neck and looked away, unsure of how to explain his state. They needed to talk. They needed privacy. Jiraiya forced himself to his feet and extended his hand to Naruto to pull the boy up as well. 

“Alright, everybody, move along! This area is for patients only!” Sakura waved the small crowd away from the medical tent, then she turned to Jiraiya and began shoving him into the tent. Naruto shouted at her to wait, but she shook a threatening fist at him and his mouth snapped closed. “He needs medical attention, Naruto. Let me take a look and he’s all yours.”

“The kid can come too. I still get visitors, right?” Jiraiya arched a brow at her and she sighed, but she waved a hand for Naruto to follow them into the tent. There were several cots inside the tent, almost all of them occupied with the injured. Sakura led him to one of the available cots and he dropped down onto it with a heavy sigh. “Anyone want to tell me what the hell happened here?” Sakura ignored him and began to unwind the bandages on his chest, leaving Naruto to try to summarize the events. Where he might have skipped to the most heroic points, he chose to deliver the facts in a monotone. “What happened to hime?” Sakura winced and Naruto looked down at his feet.

“She’s not dead,” Sakura frowned, hands moving over the stitches to check for infection. Jiraiya frowned, and though he hated to have her looking him over, he remained still. Typically loud, boisterous, Naruto remained quiet, as if sharing the truth about what had transpired had destroyed him all over again. Jiraiya felt the same way, whenever he had to talk about the second and third war. The wounds were fresh, just like the physical wounds marring his body. “She’s in a coma.”

“Leave it to her to sleep on the job,” Jiraiya joked, earning a nasty look from Sakura. He’d never cared for her. In response to his joke, she applied too much pressure on one of his wounds and he hissed in pain. Naruto narrowed his eyes at Sakura and she eventually muttered an apology. He contemplated his next words, unsure of whether or not he wanted to give hope a chance to flourish. Some people never woke up. “Can I see her?” 

Sakura opened her mouth to respond, but the flaps on the tent parted and the elder council members entered. They surveyed the wounded, clearly searching for someone, until their eyes found Jiraiya. Gaze hard, he tried to deter them from approaching, but the look he shot them went ignored. Danzo was the last to enter, and Jiraiya kept track of the man. Danzo had been under investigation for some time, and Jiraiya had been the one to lead the investigation; he’d uncovered continued ties between Danzo and Orochimaru. Jiraiya didn’t care for the man, and based on the look Danzo shot him, he understood that the feeling was mutual. Before Tsunade had taken the hat, Danzo had argued against him, even before he’d declined the position. He knew exactly why they were there. He knew exactly what they wanted to say to him. And he had every intention of telling them where they could shove that hat. 

“I’m not interested,” Jiraiya frowned, turning his head to watch Sakura examine and treat his arm. Danzo looked at the other elders as if he’d expected nothing less than an outright refusal. But they didn’t leave. “Why don’t one of you old geezers take the hat?”

“How disrespectful!”

“I told you this was a waste of our time. Allow me to throw my name into this equation.”

“You would be a fine pick.”

Jiraiya didn’t even look at them as they talked amongst themselves. Naruto, entirely ignored since the elders had entered the tent, tried to lean in to whisper to Sakura, but she shook her head. Jiraiya didn’t want Danzo taking the hat. He chose not to respond because he needed time to gather his thoughts. He didn’t want to be Hokage. Hiruzen had questioned him repeatedly, telling him that it was long overdue. Even after he presented Tsunade as the next Hokage, two of the elders had argued in his favor. He didn’t want the damn responsibility. As he was, he wasn’t fit for active duty. But he didn’t want to allow someone like Danzo to control the village. He knew that the man was ruthless. Jiraiya frowned, still looking over his options, before he finally sighed. Shoulders slumped, he reached up to rub his chin.

“Fine,” he decided. All three of them looked shocked that he’d agreed, especially since he’d just outright rejected them. He shrugged his good shoulder, “I might as well. What more can the village take from me? My other arm?” Jiraiya smiled at them and they looked at one another, their silence enough to widen Jiraiya’s grin. Danzo looked unhappy with the turn of events, but he chose to press his lips together and look right over Jiraiya’s head. Homura and Koharu seemed pleased enough, once they realized that he was serious with his acceptance. “Looks like you’ll have to wait a little longer to be Hokage, kid,” Jiraiya said, turning his attention from the elders to Naruto. The teen had never looked prouder. 

After Sakura had rebandaged his wounds, she took Jiraiya to see Tsunade. The elders wanted a meeting with Jiraiya, but Jiraiya had postponed it, saying that he was chakra deprived and starving and they didn’t want him to keel over on them. He lied, of course. He wanted to see Tsunade more than he wanted to waste time in a meeting with them. He had paperwork to sign, but he knew that the paperwork would be there, waiting. When Sakura stopped outside of a small tent, she shared a few words with some guards outside, then she motioned for Jiraiya to follow her. 

There was one cot in the tent, and he knew it was hers. He saw her blonde hair and her calm features. She would have yelled at him, if she had the chance to see what he’d gotten himself into. Seeing her in that bed, he couldn’t help but blame himself all over again. It was because of his failure that she was in a coma, that Naruto had been forced to fight a battle that was never his. There was a chair beside the cot. He thought he heard Sakura mention that Shizune had been sitting with Tsunade, but he was more focused on his former teammate than her rambling. When it became obvious that he wasn’t listening, she said she’d find him something to eat and left him alone. 

He sat down next to the cot, grunting at the ache in his back. He thought that she might open her eyes for him, that it would be like one of the moments he’d written in his series. Nothing happened though. He didn’t know how long he sat there with her. Sakura had returned with a tray of food and left it on a cart next to the cot, but he didn’t move from his spot. Tsunade was a firecracker. She didn’t have the right to look so pale or so peaceful. He longed for her to open her eyes, just open her eyes, but his silent pleas went unanswered. He read over the medical chart attached to the bottom of the cart, but the outlook was _unknown_. If she never woke up, he’d never get a date with her. He’d never get to treat her to a special dinner. He’d never get to share how he felt, without all of his false bravado and perverted antics. He loved her with every part of himself, and he wanted her to know that, to feel that. He could have said so many things to her, but he chose to remain silent. He promised himself that he would visit her every day; he promised himself that he would be a better man. And he would return the hat to her when she did open her eyes. There was a silent promise that he would look after things for her. Just for a little while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a sucker for Hokage Jiraiya.


End file.
